500 Words a Week - Trying to be Everything to Everyone

This may relate more to S&C than other fields of work, but it may still be applicable. At times we can be guilty of trying to be everything to everyone at all times. Spreading ourselves thin, while trying to hold our cards close to our chest. It’s a problem we experience early in our careers. I know it’s one I did, and sometimes still do. If left unchecked I think it can lead towards disharmonious feelings of work-life balance, and burnout. In other times, it may lead to feelings of being underappreciated as you feel like you are doing so much for everyone or trying to be everything to everyone. When in reality the fault stems from within, from our weakly laid out boundaries, from our inability to differentiate between work and life.

When I think about the successful leaders I’ve got to work with or interact with it. I’m always impressed by their ability to delegate. Or their ability to know when another person’s skillset might lend itself better to a certain task, rather than trying to do everything and be everything to everyone.

This doesn’t just lend itself to leaders, the great practitioners and coaches I’ve worked with have an understanding of their knowledge boundaries. They embody the phrase “outcome over ego”, open and willing to hear and implement any idea from anyone so long as it provides a good outcome.

This is an undervalued strength, our ability to critically assess the boundaries of our knowledge. Knowing when the breadths of our knowledge end, and when we should look for outside support or council. Rather than saying I don’t know, we will scramble an answer together from brief things we have heard or learnt. The problem then is we look to cement this answer as gospel, and when it’s challenged, we take offence. Rather than remembering this opinion was something we thought about in two minutes on a topic outside the boundaries of our knowledge.

In “Clear Thinking” by Shane Parrish, self-knowledge is one of four strengths to help us take control of our life and aid with our thinking. What Shane says links to above: “Knowing just what it is you know is among the most practical skills you can have. The size of what you know isn’t nearly as important as having a sense of your knowledge’s boundaries.”

I think much of the above links with ego. We are too worried about our self-image, and we look to protect this at all costs. Trying to be everything to everyone, fans the flame of our ego. We feel important, needed and valuable. But we have artificially created these feelings. We have looked to synthesize these feelings from the outside world, from other people. Rather than being able to pause, to look inside, to generate these feelings internally and create meaning from the work we do.

A concluding remark from Shane:

“We’re prone to being less concerned with actual greatness than with exuding the appearance of greatness.”